


Small-Town Girl (the older than you think remix)

by TardisIsTheOnlyWayToTravel



Series: Small-Town Girl [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012), Thor (2011)
Genre: F/M, Lovecraftian, Remix, Secret Identity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-08
Updated: 2016-02-08
Packaged: 2018-05-18 23:33:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5947477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TardisIsTheOnlyWayToTravel/pseuds/TardisIsTheOnlyWayToTravel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You say that you are a Destroyer of Worlds?” Thor looked pale, and Darcy didn’t like the way he was clutching his hammer.</p><p>“I said <i>Elder God</i>, not <i>Destroyer of Worlds.</i>" Darcy was annoyed. “Do your ears need cleaning?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Small-Town Girl (the older than you think remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Small-Town Girl (from down Miskatonic County way)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1418038) by [TardisIsTheOnlyWayToTravel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TardisIsTheOnlyWayToTravel/pseuds/TardisIsTheOnlyWayToTravel). 



> This is a remix of my fic _Small-Town Girl (from down Miskatonic County way)_ , because I thought, 'what if Darcy wasn't the descendant of an Elder God, but an Elder God herself?' Some parts of this story are the same as in the original, but in other places it deviates. Hope you enjoy!
> 
> I may write more of this at some point, I dunno.

**Small** **Town** **Girl (the older than you think remix)**

It was a hell of a thing, being human.

Not that most humans seemed to notice, too busy going about their lives as though they mattered, but really – tiny little sentiences that did all their thinking with blood-filled fleshy organs that worked via electrical impulses, and acted as though this was _normal._ They didn’t have the breadth of perception or intelligence that an Elder God did, of course, but the fact that they had any capacity for intellect at all was, frankly, astounding.

But then, everything those short-lived little creatures did was astounding. Look at the technology they’d created, designed to warp and shape their environment to better suit them! They had culture, and language, and blueberry pie – all of it equally improbable, and evolutionarily expensive. But they thrived, all the same, the adaptable little humans, and Darcy Lewis was fascinated by them.

At least, the being which called herself Darcy Lewis was. Technically Darcy was human – she had a fully-functional, living body and everything, and any test a human might have thought to do would have showed that she was human. But folded up inside her body was the real Darcy, crammed down into a millionth of her true size, dormant and asleep as her consciousness used her small fleshy brain and nervous system to think and feel and perceive the world around her. Darcy’s real name was something ancient and terrible, beyond human speech, and Darcy herself was older than the stars – older than the universe, even. Darcy had existed when there was nothing else to exist but herself and others of her kind. She much preferred now to then: her life, such as it was, was far more interesting.

 _Interesting_ was the watchword of Darcy’s life. She did what she had to in order to survive as well, of course, but wherever she could, the choices she made were based on what seemed the most interesting at the time… which was how she ended up interning with Dr Jane Foster for six science credits.

Dr Foster’s work was endlessly amusing to Darcy, who, even in human form, still understood enough about how the laws of physics worked to build an Einstein-Rosen bridge in her sleep. But it was important for Jane to work it out for herself, so although Darcy gave her hints at times – carefully disguised as innocent questions – Darcy didn’t outright help her with the project, except in the ways that were expected of an intern.

It was fun, really, spending the days working with Jane and the nights either listening to her iPod or going down to Puente Antiguo’s only bar (and who knew that life in a one-bar town could possibly be so interesting?). But then the Asgardian hammer came to Earth, shortly followed by Thor, and that was when things _really_ got interesting.

Darcy felt the Bifrost activate and the hammer fall, of course, shooting across the sky and landing somewhere not too distant, but she and Jane were in the car, driving out into the desert with Jane’s mentor Erik Selvig, and there was no way Darcy could head back in the direction of the hammer to investigate. Not that she knew that it was the hammer, at the time – all she knew was that something magical, something that smacked of Asgard had just come shooting out of the Bifrost, and that where one Asgardian artefact went, trouble was bound to follow. But she continued driving the car out into the desert, instead of following the hammer, which was just as well – because then Thor fell out of the sky, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Much later – not long before Erik was snapped up by SHIELD for some top-secret project – Erik and Darcy were sitting in a bar while Jane got them all more drinks, and Erik said thoughtfully,

“I have wondered for a while now why you seemed so ready to believe that Thor was indeed a god.”

Darcy almost snorted, as she always did when people referred to Thor as a ‘god.’ A small-time, young god, impressive to humans, perhaps, but nothing next to an Elder God. But she managed to keep a straight face, gazing into her empty glass as though pondering Erik’s question.

“ _There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy_ ,” Darcy quoted, still staring into her glass.

“That’s not an answer.”

Darcy finally met Erik’s eyes, and gave a sly grin.

“No,” she said. “It isn’t.”

And she went to help Jane carry the drinks back to their table.

* * *

When Jane and Darcy were sent to Tromso, Darcy knew that something was up.

The fabric of reality felt _wrong_ , for one thing; twisted, as though something of immense power was warping it out of shape. Darcy had been living with this feeling for a while now, and she still didn’t like it. Whatever it was that was warping reality wasn’t strong enough at present to actually destroy reality – but it was strong enough to make Darcy – the small, human part of Darcy – uneasy.

Then there was the fact that Jane and Darcy were only given three hours notice in which to gather all their things and equipment before they were due to leave. Darcy packed clothes and toiletries and other essentials with strict efficiency, and then bullied Jane into packing up her research and equipment equally efficiently. No one would tell Jane or Darcy what was going on, which was another red flag; all they would say was that it was imperative that the two of them be relocated to Tromso, which was basically the middle of nowhere as far as Darcy was concerned. So that was that.

Except that during their flight, Darcy felt reality rip open, just for an instant, creating a portal from one point of spacetime to another. Then the rip closed again, almost immediately. But Darcy was left wondering, with a sense of unfamiliar, human dread, what was going on. The part of her that slumbered didn’t care – what was one reality amongst an infinite number of them? – but Darcy had been living in human form long enough that she cared about this reality and its people and its other living things, and long enough to feel scared.

After two days of being told nothing, of doing nothing, Darcy felt reality rip open a second time – and this time, it remained constant. That was it. Darcy hacked into SHIELD, which was how she found out about Loki and his portal, and the alien invasion of New York.

She hacked the live video feed that was streaming to SHIELD’s helicarrier, and watched the footage with burning eyes, while next to her Jane sat in numb shock.

This was her world – she had claimed it for her own, with great affection – and some numbskull alien prince had _dared_ to invade it? There would be a reckoning, sooner or later. Darcy might be human for now, but one day, the rest of her would wake, and she would take on her true form once again, and every corner of reality would tremble at her might.

As Darcy watched, and listened, the Avengers managed to close the portal, and the alien invaders fell to the ground like their strings had been cut. The invasion was over.

Thor had been one of those battling the Chitauri, and Jane had insisted that she and Darcy get the first available flight back to New York. But by the time they arrived, Thor was long gone.

Jane took it hard, of course, although Darcy managed to talk her into continuing her Einstein-Rosen bridge research.

“This was your life’s dream long before Thor showed up, Jane,” Darcy told her. “Don’t let the asshole ruin it for you, okay?”

Jane nodded, her red-rimmed eyes determined, and the next day the two of them were back at SHIELD, arranging to have Jane’s equipment flown back to the New York headquarters.

It wasn’t until later that Darcy found out that Agent Coulson had been killed by Loki.

And Darcy wasn’t sure what to do about that.

* * *

The thing was, Darcy had _liked_ Coulson.

 Sure, he’d stolen Jane’s research and her iPod, but he was ridiculously imperturbable, and Darcy had gotten to know him a little in the months leading up to the Chitauri invasion. He’d stopped by periodically to check in on Jane’s project, and even when Darcy had been at her most annoying his bland mask had never slipped. Sometimes he’d even come back with a quick riposte when Darcy had made a crack at his expense, just as clever and funny as Darcy’s own comments. Darcy admired people who were competent and rolled with the punches, and they didn’t come much more competent and able to roll with the punches than Coulson.

So when Darcy found out that Coulson was dead, she was kind of sad. Besides, Coulson’s replacement, Agent Sitwell, wasn’t even half as unflappable, and Darcy missed having someone who could deal with her as easily as Coulson did.

But then it turned out that Coulson was alive after all, and Darcy was so mad at the deception she wanted to go up there and punch the Director herself.

By this point Thor had returned to Earth, and he and Jane had made up, and now he and Jane were living in Avengers Tower. Darcy was living there too, because Jane was an awesome friend who had made sure Darcy got an entire suite to herself. The only downside was that it was right next to Jane’s, and even the Tower’s soundproofing wasn’t enough to silence Jane and Thor when they were having, ahem, ‘private time.’ Still, Darcy figured it was worth putting up with in return for a rent-free suite in the coolest building in New York.

Darcy was there with everyone else when Coulson showed up: alive, and walking and talking. Most of the Avengers were pretty mad at him: Clint shut himself up in the shooting range for days and refused to talk to anyone, Natasha spoke darkly in Russian and carved words written in Cyrillic characters into all the furniture. Bruce mostly seemed uncomfortable with the deception, rather than angry with Phil himself, and Steve looked disappointed over the whole thing. Tony, meanwhile, ranted and raved, but finished with a ‘Good to see you’re alive, Agent’ that probably meant he wasn’t harbouring any hard feelings.

Darcy just eyed the way Coulson was standing to favour one side of his body over the other and the fine lines of pain around his eyes, and asked, “You want some coffee?”

“God yes,” said Coulson, and so Darcy ordered Tony’s scary coffee machine to make them both espressos.

Coulson was around a lot, after that. On Fury’s orders he moved into the Tower with the Avengers (‘To better supervise your ridiculous antics,’ Fury had said) and so Darcy saw him at all hours of the day and night. After a while, she started calling him Phil, the way Clint and Natasha did. He didn’t seem to mind.

“So,” said Tony one day, “I get why Foster gets to live in the superhero clubhouse, but why are _you_ here? I never actually asked. I mean you’re not exactly the superhero type.”

“Shut up, I am secretly badass,” said Darcy, insulted.

“Sure you are,” said Tony condescendingly.

“She had the presence of mind to taze an angry god, and to assist in evacuating Puente Antiguo when it was being attacked by Loki,” said Phil, who had appeared behind Tony without making any sound. “I think at this point she deserves the benefit of the doubt.”

Tony jumped, and swore, a hand clutching at his arc reactor.

“Jesus, Agent, don’t creep up on me like that!”

“Besides,” Darcy added her two cents, “if magic powers and godlike muscles were what it took to be a superhero, I’d be way more qualified than you. So there.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Tony demanded, but Darcy was already leaving the room.

A moment later Phil joined her in walking down the hallway.

“Your statement raises some interesting questions,” he said blandly. Darcy shrugged.

“I’m a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma,” she said, and patted his arm gently. “Some day I might tell you, Phil, but today is not that day.”

Phil raised his eyebrows.

“I’m disappointed,” he said, not sounding disappointed at all. Darcy laughed.

“How long do you think Tony’s going to obsess over what I said?” she asked.

“A while,” said Phil. “Prepare to be under constant surveillance.”

“Please, like I wasn’t under that already. Right, JARVIS?”

“Quite correct, Miss Lewis,” said the ceiling. “Sir monitors all activity within the Tower.”

“He’s like Ceiling Cat,” Darcy told Phil, and had the satisfaction of seeing Phil’s brow furrow slightly in what was probably confusion.

“I’ll take your word for it.”

Darcy grinned, and turned left down the next hallway, leaving Phil to his own devices.

* * *

Darcy was feeling hungry, but unfortunately, getting a quick snack was proving harder than she’d thought it would be. 

Darcy stared upwards in frustration, and wondered what bastard had put the cookies on the top shelf. She could either climb the shelves, or…

“Hey JARVIS, there any cameras in the pantry cupboard?”

“There are not, Miss Lewis.”

Darcy concentrated, and a tendril of power slipped out from the part of her that slumbered, forming a long, pale tentacle. Darcy reached up and used it to grab the packet of cookies.

The tentacle dispersed into the ether barely a second before someone opened the pantry door. Darcy jumped guiltily.

Phil raised an eyebrow, looking quizzical, so –

“I’m stealing the cookies!” Darcy blurted. “Want to help?”

“This seems like a transparent attempt to buy my silence.”

“Is it working?”

Phil glanced at the cookies.

“What kind are they?”

“Uh, chocolate-coated wafers,” said Darcy.

“Then we have a deal,” said Phil.

They ended up sitting out on the rooftop balcony, looking out at the skyline and eating the cookies.

Darcy sent Phil a sideways glance, contemplating. Phil wasn’t bad-looking, in a middle-aged, bland suit kind of way, and he was supremely competent, and Darcy had no doubt that when the situation called for it he was also supremely deadly. He was calm and took no shit and rolled with the weird, and Darcy liked him.

And maybe, she was beginning to realise, _liked_ him.

“Can you really kill a man with a paperclip?” Darcy asked, apropos of nothing.

Phil gave a long-suffering sigh.

“I did that _once_ ,” he answered. He sounded like he was sick of being asked.

“Cool,” said Darcy.

“It was rather unpleasant, actually.”

The courtship rituals of Elder Gods were long and complicated, but Darcy was, at the moment, human. And their courtship rituals weren’t nearly as difficult as most of them believed.

Darcy offered Phil the cookie packet.

“Cookie?”

“Thanks,” said Phil, and took one.

They sat there in silence for a while, eating the cookies as the sun went down.

“You know,” said Darcy, “I’m glad you’re not dead.”

Phil glanced at her.

“For one thing, Sitwell was easy to freak out, it was sad. But the universe wouldn’t be as interesting without you in it, so… yeah. Glad you’re alive.”

“I’m pretty glad about it myself,” said Phil, and then, “Thank you.”

Darcy smiled out into the gathering darkness, and felt at peace with the world.

* * *

Darcy still hadn’t forgiven SHIELD for hiding the fact that Phil was alive and not dead, and so when the Director of SHIELD stopped by to talk to the Avengers about something important, Darcy made sure that she was there to glare at him so that he knew that _someone_ , at least, still wasn’t happy with the decision he’d made.

Fury ignored her glare until the end of the impromptu meeting, at which point he met her eyes squarely and asked, “Do we have a problem, Ms Lewis?”

Darcy met his stare, her arms folded.

“You made the wrong call, keeping Phil’s survival from the team.”

“I made the best decision I could based on the information available to me at the time,” said Fury, and to his credit, he didn’t talk down to her just because he was the Director of SHIELD and Darcy was, to his knowledge, merely a lowly assistant. “Maybe it was the wrong call, but even I don’t know everything.”

It wasn’t an apology, but it was close enough that Darcy was mollified.

“Okay, fair enough,” she said, losing her glower. “Just… if it ever happens again, remember that he has people who care about him, okay?”

Fury gave her a thoughtful look.

“Including you?” The question was pretty personal, but Darcy answered it anyway.

“Including me. And trust me, if this happened a second time, I wouldn’t be so forgiving.”

Fury raised an eyebrow.

“Is that supposed to scare me?” He sounded genuinely curious.

Darcy smiled with all her teeth.

“You have no idea what I’m capable of, Director. Pray you never find out.”

“Noted,” said Fury, still looking at her thoughtfully. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a helicarrier to get back to.”

Darcy stood aside silently, and watched him go, and wondered if he’d believed her.

Oh well. He’d find out that she’d been telling the truth, sooner or later.

* * *

Darcy was in the penthouse kitchen, because that was where everyone congregated for meals these days, when JARVIS’ voice suddenly said from the ceiling, “There has been a security breach. All personnel please remain where you are.”

A moment he added, “Miss Lewis, it is imperative that you remain in the kitchen.”

“Why?” Darcy asked. “JARVIS? What’s going on?”

“There has been a security breach–”

“You said that,” Darcy said impatiently. “Where?”

“In the penthouse entertaining area,” said JARVIS. “Agent Coulson is dealing with the situation. Miss Lewis, please remain where you are–”

But Darcy, being Darcy, was already leaving the kitchen, curious to see what kind of ‘security breach’ had occurred.

Darcy gasped as she saw the sight before her: Phil, his gun drawn and trained on Loki – presumably the security breach JARVIS had been talking about – who was holding a long staff with some kind of crystal on the end.

“Didn’t I kill you?” Loki was looking intrigued as he circled Phil.

“You tried,” said Phil, as calmly as always. “It didn’t stick.”

Loki tilted his head.

“Evidently I must try harder this time,” he said, and smiled, his eyes moving from Phil to where Darcy stood behind him in the doorway, and Darcy saw _red_.

And deep inside, something stirred, and _woke_ …

Darcy’s mortal form unfolded like unravelling origami, and Loki’s eyes widened.

“ _No_ ,” he said, raising his staff, which was as far as he got before Darcy backhanded him with a tentacle, clear across the room and through the far wall.

 **“NO ONE HURTS MY PEOPLE!”** she boomed, in a voice that resonated with strange harmonies, her true shape crouched and bristling with tentacles and sharp, curving claws where no claws should be. **“ESPECIALLY NOT PHIL!”**

Her voice was as human as she could make it, but from the way Phil tensed with pain it wasn’t human enough. Around Darcy the dimensions stretched and warped to hold her, her colossal true form as large as a planet inside the tiny room.

Phil glanced back over his shoulder, and his eyes went wide and glassy as he saw, and failed to comprehend her true form, his mind going into a mental Blue Screen of Death.

Darcy scooped him up with a  tentacle and deposited him neatly out of the way where he would be safe, and reached forward.

Loki was scrambling to his feet, terror in his eyes and words of power on his lips, but too late: Darcy grabbed him, ripped a hole in reality, and flung him through to the inhospitable planet beyond, before zipping the hole closed again, and turning.

In the space between her and Phil, Darcy shrank, down, down, down, folding down like an intricate piece of origami, and by the time she reached Phil she was all tiny and human-shaped again.

Phil was still staring glassily at the space in front of him, and Darcy slapped him lightly.

“Phil. Phil!” she said, and he snapped out of it abruptly.

“Terrible things,” he muttered, and shook his head, an expression of dread and confusion crossing his face. “What just happened?”

“Sorry, that was me,” said Darcy. “Human minds aren’t meant to comprehend my true form.”

Phil stared at her.

“What?” He looked around. “Where’s Loki?”

“In a galaxy far, far away,” said Darcy, faintly smug. “Where he won’t be causing trouble for us for a while.”

Phil looked at her – _really_ looked at her. Then:

“What did you mean, human minds aren’t meant to comprehend your true form?”

Darcy met his eyes, and shrugged a little.

“I’m an Elder God in human form?” she offered.

It was at this point that the Avengers burst in.

“HULK SMASH LOKI!” bellowed the Hulk, before pausing in confusion.

“Where is my brother?” Thor roared, swinging Mjolnir in a menacing way.

“Yeah, where is Reindeer Games?” asked Tony through the armour.

“He isn’t here,” said Natasha, her eyes narrowed as they landed on Coulson, who still looked more than a little unsettled, before they darted to Darcy.

“He’s gone,” said Darcy, turning to face them.

“What did you do?” Natasha asked.

“What?” said Clint.

“What could Darcy have done?” asked Tony. “I mean, this is _Loki_.”

“Quite a lot, actually,” said Darcy, feeling nettled. It took only a tendril of power to manifest several tentacles, and wave them in Tony’s direction.

“Holy shit!” Clint leaped backwards like a startled cat. “Tentacles!”

“Where did those come from?” Tony wondered. “I mean, there’s only so many places you can hide a set of tentacles–”

“I’m an Elder God in human form,” Darcy interrupted, before Tony could speculate further.

There was a disbelieving silence.

“An Elder God?” asked Steve finally. “As in Lovecraft?”

“Exactly,” said Darcy, pleased that he understood.

“You say that you are a Destroyer of Worlds?” Thor looked pale, and Darcy didn’t like the way he was clutching his hammer.

“I said _Elder God_ , not _Destroyer of Worlds_.” Darcy was annoyed. “Do your ears need cleaning?”

“In Asgard they are understood to be one and the same,” said Thor, watching Darcy warily.

Darcy huffed.

“Oh please, all of what Asgard knows could fill a thimble.”

“What did you say?” Thor rumbled, looking insulted.

“You heard me.” Darcy threw out her arms. “I’m an Elder God! I hold all the knowledge of the cosmos! Admittedly, I don’t have it all right this moment because I’m thinking with my tiny human brain right now instead of, you know, the rest of me, but still. Fountain of knowledge and power here, people.”

“But you’re not intending to hurt people?” asked Steve.

“Well, maybe bad people,” Darcy had to admit. “If bad guys like Loki attack again, I might go the full transformation on their asses, but otherwise, I’m a live, let live kind of Elder God.”

Darcy was aware that Phil was watching her.

“You realise that the Director has to be informed,” he said slowly. Some of the colour had returned to his face, and he no longer looked so shaken up.

Darcy gave a huff.

“Why? This is the same dude who let us all think you were dead for months.”

“To be fair, I was dead for at least three minutes,” said Phil.

“Still not justified,” Darcy told him. She glanced back at the others.

“Do you mind giving us some privacy for a moment?”

“Privacy?” Tony echoed. “We just found out you’re an _Elder God_ –”

“Stark,” said Natasha. “Guys. Let’s give them a moment.”

The others seemed doubtful. Natasha chivvied them all out of the room anyway.

“JARVIS is watching you,” Tony said, pointing at Darcy, right before Natasha glared at him. “I’m going, I’m going.”

The door shut behind him.

“You saved my life,” said Phil. “I didn’t think human lives mattered much to Elder Gods.”

Darcy clenched her fist.

“You’re one of _my_ humans,” she said, and only realised after she said it how fierce her voice sounded. She swallowed.

Phil was still watching her.

“Is that all?”

“No,” said Darcy. “It isn’t.” And then, throwing caution to the winds, she kissed him.

It was brief and chaste, just enough to get the message across, before Darcy pulled back. Her human heart was hammering with a mix of dread and anticipation, as she was unsure whether or not she was about to be rejected.

But Phil’s mouth twitched up a little at the corners, and Darcy slumped in relief, smiling back at him.

“So you’re an Elder God,” Phil said conversationally.

“Yup.”

“I think we can work with that,” he said, and smiled fully.

 


End file.
